Introduction in EDGE to The Upside of Down - Thomas Homer-Dixon

A pulse issues from the uneasy heart of change. Societal plates like tectonic plates bump into each other building up pressures which must be relieved.

We are threatened by interrelated stresses:

• Population – The growth rate is different in rich and poor societies. It has peaked in some rich societies. The poor flood into rapidly growing megacities (e.g., Dhaka in Bangladesh). Conflicts between and within various regions (crowded and open) creates stress. Population pressures affect energy use, the environment, the climate and economics.
• Energy – The high quality energy (primarily oil) that fuels growth has peaked – we are now scrambling for less available more expensive oil. The scramble to get energy and maintain economic growth creates stress. Energy extraction and consumption affects the environment and the climate.
• Environment – The natural environment is being destroyed. Resources are being used up. The struggle between those who exploit and those who conserve resources creates stress. The state of the environment affects the kind and quantity of energy available, the economy and the climate.
• Climate – The atmosphere is changing; the planet is warming. Climate change creates stresses in all other societal plates.
• Economic –The gap between rich and poor is widening. Societies are becoming unstable, prone to revolution and terrorism. Conflicts between rich and poor create stresses. Activities in all other societal plates affect the economic plate.

Multipliers and Thresholds (Non-Linear Systems)

Conditions are made worse because of global connectivity. Everything, everyplace is connected. One thing can affect many things which can affect many things that feed back on the original thing. This means a small event in one place can have an outsized impact everywhere. An unexpected but well-connected event can trigger a Fall. Maybe a pandemic comes out of Africa, a critical oil producer in the Middle East collapses, a terrorist uses a nuke anywhere, or a critical component of the climate (say the Gulf Stream) fails.

The Flat Earth meets the Black Swan.

Thermodynamics and Complex Adaptive Systems

Human societies are complex adaptive systems. So are animal societies, the stock market, the biosphere, all business and human minds individually and collectively. The list goes on. Characteristics of complex adaptive systems include connectivity, non-linear reactions (small causes can have large results), energy usage and growth.

The last two characteristics are especially important. Complex adaptive systems are thermodynamic. They suck energy out of environments, consuming the readily available energy first, then as that supply is exhausted, the more costly energy (in terms of money and effort to obtain). Adaptive systems that are smart enough try various compensating tricks as energy becomes scarcer. For example, in burgeoning rat populations, the strong eat the weak - which might be analogous to what some rich humans do to some poor humans.

Homer-Dixon says human societies adapt to resource scarcity by becoming more and more complex, more connected and interdependent. We squeeze every last bit of efficiency out of our systems, until there is nothing left to squeeze. In the process we lose resiliency, become fragile, subject to disruption.

The final stage of the growth cycle is common to all adaptive systems. The system becomes increasingly vulnerable to black swan events. Inevitably something happens. The whole thing falls apart. The Lemmings go off the cliff. The rat population collapses. The locusts, having eaten everything, starve. The forest burns. Rome falls. Entropy eases over the debris like still water.

There is a Fall.

Homer-Dixon says that the upcoming Fall of human civilization will be a major social transformation "pulse" comparable to the transformation from hunter-gatherer to agricultural society, the industrial revolution, and the communications revolution.

Foreshocks of our Fall include the recent recession, the current revolutions in the Middle East, the synergy of disasters in Japan.

Prospective Minds

But - and this is the hopeful note offered at the end of the book, if too much doesn't fail at one time, a resurgence can follow a Fall. Homer-Dixon calls this Catagensis. It's what happened in Western Europe after WWII, what happened in the Northern U.S. after the Civil War (what happened to me after I had angioplasty - when I quit smoking, lost 40 pounds and started taking six mile walks). However if things go too far (think Haiti, Somalia, Southern US after the Civil War) resurgence is less likely, or will take longer.

To minimize the effects of The Fall, Homer-Dixon says we need to develop value systems that get beyond consumerism and the growth imperative, that recognize (1) the laws of thermodynamics and role of energy in our survival (2) the dangers of certain kinds of connectivity and (3) the non-linear behavior of natural systems.

We need to develop prospective minds – embracing change and surprise, understanding how little we understand (and can understand) how little we control (and can control).

In the words of Nassim Taleb (the Black Swan guy) we must become citizens of Extremistan.

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Introduction in EDGE to The Great Disruption - Paul Gilding 

We are about to be seriously disrupted. It won’t be a once-in-a lifetime, or even once-in-a-century event , but something that happens once-in-a-civilization, something that defines an era –like the Renaissance, Enlightenment, or maybe the Dark Ages. It might be even bigger, redefining us at the evolutionary level. People with certain propensities might breed more. Those that survive might think and behave differently. 

Disruptions have already occurred in various third world countries - Haiti, Bangladesh and others. Much of Africa has been disrupted. Populations have starved, died of disease, gone without fresh water. People have suffered the upheavals that Gilding says will happen to first-world countries unless we react properly and don’t let the disruption slide too far.

At the time of this writing, first world countries are still in reasonably good shape. Although financial and political discord is common not many people are actually starving. Nobody is plotting revolution  at the time of this writing – not in the U.S. anyway. Quite a few people are getting rich.

So, why are disruptions looming?

Principally because the earth is running out of room. There are too many people consuming too much stuff. The planet cannot replenish itself. It is like a global Ponzi scheme in which current prosperity is based on the anticipation of future gain. We are robbing Peter to pay Paul. It is just a matter of time before the future arrives and we discover that the gain we thought we had has been used up.

Although most people don’t know an end is coming, many people seem uneasy. They join fringe political groups like the Tea Party and the Wall Street occupiers.  They are attracted to tales of gloom and doom.  They suspect something and will not be not be surprised when their suspicions are confirmed. Gilding calls that moment  the Great Awakening.

The Great Awakening might be sudden or gradual. It could occur before, during or after the Great Disruption.

A sudden Awakening might be triggered by an ecological/economic Pearl Harbor. It could be a pandemic resulting from the spread of pathogens from third to first world countries. It might be the accelerated melting of artic ice, causing coastal regions to flood. The Gulf Stream could fail, paradoxically triggering a new ice age in the midst of global warming.

Alternatively the Awakening might be a gradual tipping point of public awareness that results from a  accumulation of lesser events. People might just wake up one day and see what they have not seen before.

Whatever the proximate cause, Gilding claims that by the time the Awakening happens it will too late to change course. Nothing can help then. The Great Disruption will happen (or will have already happen).

However, and this is the point of his book, we can stop ourselves from falling completely over the edge into a Mad Max/Cormac McCarthy style dystopia  - especially if we are lucky enough to have a preceding Great Awakening . If we put ourselves on a wartime footing the human species will not fall completely. We can stabilize the Fall, fix the climate crisis and kick our addiction to growth – which caused the problem to begin with.

Introduction in EDGE to The Black Swan - Nassim Taleb

The disruption is  likely to be triggered by a black swan. That's the province of Nassim Taleb. 

Nassim Taleb is a man on a mission. Like the Ancient Mariner, he seems compelled to tell his story. However, instead of being cursed by a dead albatross, he is plagued by black swans. They lurk unseen (and unseeable) in the corner of every room, waiting to peck us or preen us without warning.

Taleb describes a rough sort of trader zen - an eightfold way (more or less) for getting by in a world beset by black swans.

1. The world consist of two overlapping realities. One, that Taleb calls Mediocristan, is orderly and predictable. Events here fit under a neat bell curve. It is dominated by the mean or middle. The other reality, that Taleb calls Extremistan, is wild and unpredictable. Events here can be expressed by a so-called Pareto distribution. It is dominated by infrequent events of high magnitude - black swans. (This is where the disruption will happen.)
2. The world is much more of an Extremistan place than we like to imagine.
3. We pretend the world is orderly and predictable (a Mediocristan place) because orderly and predictable is what we do as humans.
4. Extremistan is unfair.
5. Extremistan is exciting.
6. It is better to be broadly right than narrowly right but broadly wrong.
7. The most unexpected (and the grandest) black swan is you.
8. The best way to get along in Extremistan is to:

• Be where positive black swans happen (the Hollywood hopefuls hanging out at Schwab's Drugstore had it right). Learn to recognize good luck; when it occurs, run with it.
• Avoid neighborhoods where negative black swans hang out.
• Constantly tinker to see if something good bubbles up. Don't worry about being seen as (or being) outlandish. Modesty is an expensive virtue.
• Mistrust experts who claim to predict the future.
• Find tricks to cultivate hope.

Introduction in EDGE to The World Is Flat - Thomas Friedman

Once initiated by a black swan, the disruption proceeds unimpeded across a flat world.

Thomas Friedman writes about flat worlds.

In clever stories and neat lists, he examines the potential and perils of the third great era of flattening - when people become globally connected across the world. The two previous eras (in 1492 when Columbus made his trip and in 1800 when traders roamed the globe) connected countries and companies.

Friedman says that the world has become flat as a result of what is known as globalization. Barriers between trade and communication have come down (been flattened). The playing field on which people, companies, and countries compete and play has been leveled. The world is no longer large and round; it is a small and flat. The people on the playing field are just as likely to be brown and Eastern as they are to be white and Western.

Ten forces, some social (such as the falling of the Berlin Wall) and some technical (such as the rise of internet and broadband communication) flattened the world. These forces converged with business and political developments to create what Friedman calls Globalization 3.0.

Of course, the flattening process is not complete. Many irregularities and rough spots remain. Nor do all people and countries profit equally. Some people, the sick, old, ignorant, and less agile are likely to get squished in the grand flattening. Nor is the process inevitable or irreversible. A grand old fashioned war could throw everything off.

Right now we are in a sorting-out period, figuring out what (and who) gets flattened and what (and who) is allowed to remain somewhat irregular - perhaps for compassionate or sentimental reasons.

Friedman offers advice to individuals, companies, and countries on how to survive and prosper during the great flattening.

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Introduction in EDGE to Collapse - Jared Diamond 

It has happened before.

Diamond’s college students always ask how could societies make the disastrous decisions that allow a collapse to happen - in particular they ask...

1. Why don’t societies anticipate problems?
2. Why don’t societies recognize problems even after the situation becomes obvious?
3. Why, even after the situation becomes obvious, do some societies, (or the people who could do something) not even attempt a solution?
4. And why do solutions fail?

The questions, the answers are relevant to planetary issues.

People just don’t see the problem coming. There is a failure of imagination. British colonists in Australia did not imagine what would happen when they introduced foxes and rabbits. The foxes killed off smaller native animals and birds (none of whom had genetically coded experience with these foreign predators). Rabbits ate everything and even though the foxes ate the rabbits they couldn’t keep up. Another example is kudzu –which was introduced in the southern U.S. to control erosion and ended up covering a lot of landscape.

Societies don’t remember past problems. Non-literate societies can lose information from generation to generation. Literate societies can simply forget what has been written. For example just after the 1973 oil crisis Americans briefly switched to more economical cars. After a few years they returned to gas guzzlers.

People draw false analogies to past problems. Remembering apparent lessons of WWI, the French developed the Maginot line – a series of fortifications positioned to repel likely German infantry attacks. Unfortunately the Germans bypassed the Maginot line with masses of tanks – which had only been used individually in previous war. The French generals were stuck in the past and failed to anticipate the future. They learned the wrong lessons.

Sometimes people don’t see a problem even after it arrives.

There are at least three reasons for such failures of perception…

Imperceptible - The problem is literally invisible to the naked eye. For example, a region’s soil nutrients – invisible to the eye – might be missing. Native plants growing in such soil can appear lush, disguising the fact that all the nutrients are locked in the plants. When settlers, not knowing any better, cut the plants down the nutrients go away. Crops planted by the settlers won’t grow. Or, consider greenhouses gases. They are generally invisible. So are pathogens.

Distant Managers - Decision-makers might be somewhere else. They don’t know when things go bad. Diamond notes that Tikopian and the New Guinea highland societies were successful – at least in part - because everyone involved was there. The bosses knew what was going on.

Slow Trends - Slow trends can be hidden in up and down fluctuations. Noise obscures signals. Consider global warming. One year the temperature is up; another year it is down. Much data had to be collected before scientists agreed that global warming is real. Creeping normalcy (landscape amnesia) can hide trends. When things happen slowly enough we might not see the changes. Over the years an untended field becomes overgrown and nobody notices until one day somebody says didn’t that used to be a field? Or a slum happens. Or a town becomes gentrified. Or a stream gradually becomes filled with silt from runoff. Or gradually all the trees in a forest are cut down and only the old people remember back when.

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Tora Tora Tora etc
Last night I watched the old(er) movie Tora Tora Tora. It is about the build-up to Pearl Harbor, told from both American and Japanese perspectives. The movie is surprisingly good. No caricatured buck-tooth Japanese. Instead it depicts thoughtful admirals and clean cut young fighter pilots - none any bloodier than our guys.

What struck me was the confusion and denial on the American side. Some people knew what was coming; others, especially those in power didn't believe it or ignored it. It was a Black Swan waiting to happen.

The situation reminds me of the confusion and denial  currently taking place regarding the environment and global warming. Some people know what is going to happen; some, for various reasons, don't. It is another Black Swan waiting to happen.

Paul Gilding  author of The Great Disruption believes it. In his book, (summarized in my book EDGE)  Gilding explains how Pearl Harbor provided a Great Disruption which lead to a Great Awakening which made it possible for us to win WWII.  Thomas Homer-Dixon author of the Upside of Down (also summarized in EDGE) believes it. He says that growth (either in population or wealth) and the laws of physics make a Fall (what he calls a "pulse") inevitable.

What form will This Great Disruption take? It must catch people's attention and convince all but the most rabid deniers. It must be really big, killing a lot people and it must be clear that climate change is the cause.(In the case of Pearl Harbor a lot of people were killed and the Japanese were definitely to blame.)  A  disturbance of the Gulf Stream causing a new Ice Age in the North Atlantic could do it (although it will take a lot to explained to Deniers  how global warming could make it colder in some places). A series of impossible-to-otherwise-explain-tornadoes might do it. Maybe flooding of coastal regions caused by the melting of Arctic ice.

When will it happen? Nobody knows for sure, probably sometime in the next ten years according to the guys in my book.   Also, these guys say that the event, once it starts, will likely proceed in a non-linear fashion. The Gulf Stream would  fail quickly.  The tornadoes quickly. The ice melting would accelerate. More dark water would heat faster, melt more  ice, which would melt more ice.

And so it goes.